Hunters

by Whitley Strieber

  “You’re a clever man, Flynn Carroll, I’ll give you that. Now what more do I have to do?”

  So he was going to let it pass—for the while, anyway. “We’re gonna have to go on the hunt of a lifetime, you and me. At some point, we will be tracking the most incredible tiger on the planet. Not a half-starved tourist tiger concerned only about its mange. Eighteen feet of pure Siberian fury, and as smart as we are. At least.”

  Mac’s mouth had dropped open. His eyes went kind of glazed. He said, “If you weren’t the straightest shooting cop in Texas, I’d tell you to your face that you’d lost your mind.”

  “The tiger is only the front door. Behind that door is hell, Mac. The real thing. Might as well be.”

  “We’re gonna be tying a knot in the devil’s tail?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “So what’s our next step, Detective Carroll?”

  “Me and Diana, we’re in danger.”

  “I don’t like this, Mackie!” Cissy shrilled.

  “Send her home, Mac, she doesn’t need to be here.”

  “She can’t go home. Her daddy got caught in bed with the damn secretary of state again and the missus has cleared out of the Governor’s Mansion.”

  The secretary of state was Charles Forte. A guy. “Well,” Flynn said, “boys will be boys. But at some point, we will have to go places where Cissy cannot follow.”

  “She shoots pretty good.”

  “I can outshoot you,” she said, her baby fat wobbling prettily.

  Flynn would get back to that later. “We need to use your computers now, Mac.”

  “My computers are off limits to the po-lice.”

  “They’re also unhackable. The most anonymous damn computers I’ve ever encountered. Everything proof.”

  “This I gotta see,” Diana muttered.

  “You’re not gonna see much, son.”

  “Quit calling me that!”

  “I can let you open a browser. Nothing else.”

  Flynn knew that Mac’s computers were vitally important to a big part of his business. The Texas Rangers had discovered that they were connected to a server farm he owned in Thailand, and were probably responsible for sending out billions of spam emails a day. His hackers in the Philippines used the system to do a brisk trade in government secrets, stealing from one country to sell to another. But never America, not Mac’s beloved America. Or probably not.

  His favorite scam, though, was to wait until a big shipment of drugs was moving up through the region, then tip off the DEA for a reward. His going rate was ten percent of street value. It was a perfectly legal business, but risky—which was where the guns came in. As often as not, the DEA guys found all the mules and guards involved with the shipment dead, shot from a distance with a high-powered rifle.

  “This is interesting,” Diana said, calling to Flynn from the computer room. She had begun to work, with Mac hanging over her like a morbidly fascinated vulture.

  Flynn went in. “Where’s Cissy got to?” He didn’t like these people where he couldn’t see them.

  “Coffeemaker’s making coffee,” Diana said.

  “I have no secrets from my lover,” Mac said.

  “Yeah, you do. Among them that she’s a hostage.”

  “She can walk outa here anytime she wants.”

  “She’s gonna walk into Iraan? Thirty miles? Cissy’s in your clutches so you can get a pardon for Weezy, am I right? Does she know she’s a hostage?”

  “Maybe, but she doesn’t care. In fact, she starts coming as soon as the big bad evildoer just brushes past the subject of sex. She’s your classic con hag, rich, bored, and hot as oatmeal. There was a bunch of Tri-Delts out here from UT trying to outhunt their boyfriends. I cut her outa the herd.”

  “There’s a Jay Elder on the board of directors of the Texas Animal Rescue League,” Diana said.

  “Could be a hit. This is the place near Austin?”

  She was silent, working. “Jay Elder is an attorney, in practice twenty-three years. He’s got property around Lake Travis west of Austin. He’s also got a Louis C. Morris on his client list.” She tapped a few more keys. “Interesting.”

  “A Louis Charleton Morris died thirty-seven years ago. An infant. So we know that our guy is wearing an alias, and he’s fortyish. Fits the picture.”

  “Man, you are good with those suckers,” Mac said, “whatever the hell you’re doing.”

  “I am good, son,” Diana replied. She clicked a couple more keys, and paper came out of the printer. “Jay Elder, Louis Morris, the animal group, and a satellite view of the facility.”

  “I’d pay for your services,” Mac said. “A lot.”

  “They’d cost more than you have. Whatever you have.” She turned off the laptop, then turned it over and examined the base. In a moment, she had a black oblong object in her hand. She swung it high overhead and smashed it to bits on the desk. Gouges of mahogany flew.

  “Hey hey HEY, what the hell? What the hell did you just do?”

  “Nonsecured computer used in a classified operation. Hard disk has to be destroyed. Legal thing, son. Sorry.”

  “Damn you!” He came at her.

  Flynn saw that the rage in his eyes was damn serious, and he stepped between them. “Hold off! Just hold off!”

  Mac stopped, but that was going to last maybe five seconds.

  “Jesus, Diana!” Flynn said.

  “He’s got a backup system.”

  “It doesn’t fucking work!” he shouted.

  “I fixed it. All of your stuff is on it, none of mine. If I’d left traces, you’d draw federal interest. You don’t want that.”

  “Anybody ever gets me, it ain’t gonna be a fed.”

  “It’d be a drone strike.” She took out her credential. “Ever seen one of these?”

  Mac looked at it. Now he shifted his eyes back to Flynn. “What kinda crowd are you running with, buddy?”

  “It’s a long story. Suffice to say, if you help us, there will be credit earned. Significant credit.”

  “Flynn, if it don’t involve saving Weezy’s life, it don’t mean a thing to me. That’s my little brother, man!”

  “Don’t keep hitting me with that, you’ve got the governor’s daughter strapped into your guillotine and we both know why. Weezy will not take the needle.”

  “As long as she stays by my side. But since when does a twenty-year-old do anything for more than a couple of long farts? Soon’s I run outa horse, she’s gone.”

  “Mac, don’t reveal a crime to me.”

  Mac spread his hands. “So, okay, let’s go tiger hunting.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  They’d taken a suite at the Four Seasons in Austin on Mac’s dime. They were using one of his laptops and any calls were made over one of his cell phones. His security was the best.

  Mac and Cissy had ordered up champagne and caviar, fried wontons, Snickers bars, the list was long. She was pleading to invite friends, and Flynn thought it wise to let that happen. With them would come grass and crack and X and coke, and for Cissy a useful oblivion. In anticipation of the fact that they would be separated, a friend of Mac’s, Giorgio Budd, had appeared.

  Cissy and Giorgio bickered in the living room. He was a masseur, but she didn’t want a massage. Flynn could hear them from the bedroom he and Diana had made into an office.

  “So come on,” Giorgio wheedled. “I can do it through your clothes, it’s nice. Daddy no see.”

  “Yeah, but daddy touch.”

  “No, no, no boobies, baby. Just let daddy do his thing.”

  She yelled, “You’re too icky, okay! It’d be like being touched by the Pillsbury Dough Boy, get it? You need to meet my dad. He’d love you.”

  “He’s a stinkin’ Republican. I don’t massage no stinkin’ Republican.”

  “You could bite off his dick. You’ll get the chance.”

  Mac sat in the window of the bedroom they’d made into an office.

  Flynn said
to him, “That’s going well.”

  “If she bolts, Giorgio has orders to tie her up and stick her in a closet.”

  “Don’t tell me these things, damnit!”

  Mac’s window overlooked the Colorado River and a sunny view of South Austin beyond. “I got a bad feeling,” he said. “I had a good feeling. Now I got a bad one.”

  “It’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

  “No, Flynn, it isn’t.”

  Mac had good instincts, there was no question about that. Excellent. Flynn had not told him of the casualties so far, and he wondered why not. He should warn the guy, obviously. And yet he didn’t.

  He liked Mac, who was, as he claimed, an affable man. But he was also an extraordinary engine of human suffering. That’s what crime is—the infliction of human suffering for financial or other gain. God only knew how many lives Mac’s scams ruined in a week, not to mention his more murderous activities. Of course the DEA and the Rangers let the shooting of drug mules and cartel gunmen happen. Scumbags killing scumbags, nice and convenient.

  “I’ve got the whole area mapped out,” Diana said, “from the Animal Rescue to Jay Elder’s ranch compound near Lake Travis. There’s a house, a barn, a couple of outbuildings, a dog run and kennel. Active.”

  “What took you so long?” Mac asked. “You coulda gotten that off Google Earth an hour ago. We need to get out there, get a feel for the land.”

  “Mapped to three feet, in real time,” she continued. “Google Earth doesn’t do that.”

  “You guys can recognize faces from space, can’t you? Read license plates?”

  “Very yesterday, but yes.”

  “What can you do now? Read minds?”

  “Classified.”

  “Cool word, son. Must make you feel important as hell.”

  It was already pushing seven, and the sun was starting to set.

  “There’s something strange,” Diana said abruptly.

  On the screen of the laptop she was using was a wilderness area. Right in the middle of it was what appeared to be a small village, made of logs and expertly camouflaged.

  “It’s in the middle of a wildlife preserve. Strange place for a village.”

  “Any signs of life?”

  “I can’t be sure. There are paths, obviously.”

  “What the hell does this have to do with the price of bread?” Mac asked.

  Diana said, “It’s two miles from Jay Elder’s ranch house. And look at the buildings—there’s been an effort to camouflage them. Quite skillful. You wouldn’t see this for what it was on a Google satellite map. And as for Google Earth, their trucks stick to roads.”

  Mac peered at it. “Boy, I can even see individual branches in that camouflage. From way up there.”

  “Mac, we can determine your rate of hair loss by watching your bald spot. Face it, if you weren’t useful, the feds would’ve crushed you like a bug a long time ago.”

  “You’d be surprised at how good I am.”

  “They’re better. Now, let me see. I can switch to another lens—here we go.”

  The image changed to infrared. Nobody had to ask about the change. Both Flynn and Mac knew infrared very well.

  “Hm,” Diana said. “No obvious heat signatures. Flock of deer, eleven does and a buck, about half a mile away. That glowing dot is probably a buzzard looking for supper. Nothing dead, though, not big enough to spot, anyway.”

  “Corpses are cold,” Mac said.

  “Rot is hot, son. This system is sensitive enough to pick up the heat of decay.”

  Flynn said, “Maybe it’s an old hippie place. Commune. Austin was a major stop on the Hippie Highway.”

  “Old paths would be more vague. These are sharply drawn. People use this, but I don’t think they’re there now. And they don’t have pets. No sign of any dogs or cats.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to be able to spot a tiger with that thing, would you?” Mac asked.

  “I would but I haven’t.”

  “Shit, then, what am I supposed to hunt?”

  “You don’t understand,” Flynn said. “The tiger isn’t where it’s supposed to be, penned at the Animal Rescue League. It’s the only Siberian tiger presently missing in the United States. It’s called Snow Mountain, it’s seven years old and it has had a number of legitimate exhibitor owners, specifically two zoos and a circus. Apparently it was sold along because it ate a hell of a lot. It’s about forty percent larger than what’s normal for the breed. It was collected by the Texas Fish and Wildlife from an abusive situation, so the record says. Of course, records lie.”

  “And it’s here in Texas—specifically near Lake Travis? Or not?”

  Diana said, “Jay Elder is here because he was at his law firm yesterday. But he’s just back, interestingly enough, from Vegas.”

  “How do you find things like that out?”

  “Classified, son.”

  “Quit that, okay? I’m sorry I insulted you. Son.”

  “You are sorry, son, I agree there. Now, take a look at the Elders place. Tell me what you think.” She shifted to another image, this one of a ranch house in a small compound of buildings. There were three trucks parked near the house, two of them Cadillac Escalades, and the third a van with blackened windows. The van’s side door was open, and it was possible—just—to see a bit of the interior.

  “There aren’t any rear seats,” Flynn said.

  “Nope, and look closely.” She blew the image up to a blur. “Isn’t that a barrier behind the front seats, like the kind you see in taxis? See that white there, across the top—you can just see the dashboard beyond it, so that’s clear. But below, it’s a featureless blackness. If you were transporting a large animal, you might use a van like that, especially if it had a touchy disposition.”

  “He’s touchy all right,” Flynn said. But then he remembered the expression on the cat’s face in the storm drain, almost—was it kindness? A sort of kindness? “Touchy and complicated.”

  “I have two images here. The van pulled up. Then this one, the van with the rear door opened. About seventy seconds between them. I’m hoping we can find some residual heat in the second image.”

  Mac said, “Do the DEA boys have access to stuff like this?”

  “Classified.”

  “I think I might retire,” Mac said.

  “Don’t do that, Mac,” Flynn said, “you’ll kill my dream.”

  “Which is?”

  “Collar of a lifetime.”

  “Fuck you, Flynn.”

  “Double back.”

  They both chuckled, remembering their young days in the streets of Menard, getting up to no good together. “Fuck you” and “double back” was essential dialogue of their youth.

  When they were ten, they’d been like three brothers, him and Mac and Eddie.

  “Too long, Buddy,” he said.

  From the living room came a peal of female laughter. “She’s discovered that Giorgio’s a eunuch,” Mac commented.

  “Oh, come on,” Diana said. “There are no eunuchs.”

  “He was cut by a sultan so he could be trusted to massage the ladies of the hareem.”

  “Holy shit, who would consent to that?”

  “I don’t think that ‘no’ was an available answer. He made some money, though.” Cissy laughed again, wonder in her voice. “When he can’t get what he wants, which is to touch their beautiful bodies, he does show and tell. Works the pity angle. She’ll be on his table shortly.”

  “Guys, this has processed up nicely.”

  Flynn saw the same image on the screen, except this time there were a few extra blurs. “What are we looking at here?”

  She pointed to a ghostly smear. “That’s a man. The computer’s telling me he’s six two and fairly heavy. Likely a real bruiser. Now, here’s the interesting one. Right there by the open door. The computer doesn’t know what that is, but it’s definitely a valid infrared signature. A minute or so before this photo was taken, something warm moved th
rough that space.”

  “They just let a damn tiger out to roam the effing night?” Mac asked.

  “Looks like it,” Diana said.

  “It can’t be smart enough to risk that. What if it eats a kid?”

  “It’ll go out and take a deer, be my guess. Stay out of sight, come home at dawn.”

  “Damn hard to credit.”

  “Mac, this hunt is gonna be the challenge of your life.”

  Mac smiled, just a little, deep in his face. “You know, I think I’m gonna take my nice warm girl into the master and get myself prepped.”

  “Don’t drink anything more. Don’t get fatigued.”

  “First off, I’ve only had three bottles of that flat-assed Dom Perignon they sent up. Plus sex before a hunt helps my concentration.” He went off into the living room. “Girl! Get offa that thing, you’re gonna get your ass laid right now.” A moment’s silence, then, “Come on, little man, you can quarterback.”

  Chrissy, Mac, and Giorgio went into the bedroom, and soon what they used to call “sounds of revelry” in Flynn’s frat house at UT were heard. He wished he had Mac’s courage to still live as a boy, but he could never be as careless with lives—his own and others—as Mac was.

  “Would you please go close that door?” Diana asked him.

  Fine by him. Envying Mac’s kind of freedom wasn’t healthy.

  “I’ve picked up a couple more traces,” Diana said when he came back. “Here—” She pointed to what looked to Flynn like a slight white discoloration in the image. “And again.” The next discoloration was even fainter. “It was moving south-southeast.” She looked up from her work. “Flynn, I think the damn thing is on patrol around that house.”

  “Ideal for Mac. If it’s following a set pattern, he’ll figure that out. The man could track a ghost in a snowstorm.”

  “That’s going to work both ways.”

  “There’ll be two of us, and neither one’s going to do what Snow Mountain expects, which is to assume he’s dumb.” He paused. “Diana, do you know anything about combining human and animal genes? Would that be the reason the damn thing is so smart?”